i'll have to fly (there's no one to catch me)
by shineyma
Summary: Jemma wakes up in a cell with no idea how she got there. Predictably, things only get worse from there. (Goes AU for my "before you fall" series halfway through "we're arm in arm (as we sing away).") [Part three of the "break the glass" series.]


A/N: So ages and ages ago, when I first introduced the idea of the _break the glass _series, jdphoenix requested a fic in which the kidnapping attempt in _we're arm in arm (as we sing away) _actually succeeded. Doubtless she did not expect it to turn into a monster like this (goodness knows I didn't), but, well, that's how these things go sometimes, isn't it?

Speaking of _sometimes_, this fic is within _sometimes_ canon **through chapter twelve** and about **halfway** through _we're arm in arm (as we sing away)_. Title is from _Shatter Me_ by Lindsey Stirling feat. Lzzy Hale. A follow-up/companion piece from Grant's POV is totally possible, because there's a lot going on here that Jemma doesn't know about; we'll see how that goes.

With thanks to my Lexi for stepping in as a beta during my usual beta's time of understandable distraction. And, just as a reminder, this story will have _no effect_ on the main storyline.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

* * *

When Jemma wakes in a cell with no memory of how she got there, she is, understandably, terrified.

The last thing she remembers is entering the Conservatory at the U.S. Botanic Gardens with Skye. This is worrying for a number of reasons, not least of which being that there's no sign of Skye anywhere. Not that there's far to look.

Perhaps calling the room Jemma wakes up in a cell is inaccurate. The door is certainly a cell door, with iron bars and a lock on the other side, but the wall around it is solid concrete, rather than being made up of more bars. She has a bed and a desk and a chair and a lamp, all of which are bolted in place. There's also a wardrobe (which isn't bolted into place but _is_ far too heavy for her to move) full of clothes—all of them in her exact size, and while that's hardly the most worrying thing about this situation, it's still frightening.

There's even another room—a bathroom, with a toilet and a sink and a shower cubicle, and a door that closes but doesn't lock.

In short, her surroundings are much more than she would expect from a cell, size and furnishing-wise. They _also_ suggest that she'll be here for a while, and that, in itself, is also worrying.

She spends hours looking for a way out or, failing that, something to use as a weapon. She tears three nails testing the bolts on the furniture and, after breaking both of her hairpins trying to pick the lock on the door, shouts herself hoarse asking for answers.

She receives none.

In the end, she retreats to a corner and hugs her knees to her chest, trying not to cry. She keeps her timer within her sight, a glowing green reminder that she's not alone—that she has a soulmate who is one of SHIELD's best specialists, not to mention a team consisting of her partner (the smartest person she's ever met), the Cavalry, a frighteningly talented hacker (and Skye's not here so she _must_ be with the others, mustn't she?), and a commanding officer who will do _anything_ for his team.

They'll find her. She'll be rescued any minute. She just needs to be patient.

x

For the first few weeks of her captivity, she's left almost entirely alone. Meals are delivered through a slot in the door three times a day by a steady rotation of men dressed in combat gear, but none of them will respond to her demands for answers. They will not tell her where she is or why or what happened to Skye; in fact, not one of them ever speaks a word.

The silence and isolation are maddening, as is the boredom. On the second day, she discovers in the desk a Kindle loaded with a number of scientific journals, as well as some of her favorite books (which is another worrying sign; whoever her captors are, they were well prepared for her), but she finds it difficult to concentrate on reading when she has so many unanswered questions.

She doesn't know why she's being held hostage. She's been trained to expect such—all of SHIELD's scientists are required to go through hostage training, in preparation of the possibility of being taken for the classified knowledge they hold—but this is nothing like what her training led her to anticipate.

She isn't tortured or questioned or forced into working in a lab for her captors. She isn't threatened or harmed at all, in those first few weeks. Honestly, if not for the fact that she's done absolutely nothing to deserve it, she'd almost think she was in prison.

She worries endlessly; sometimes about herself—about who's holding her and what they want and whether she will ever be released—but mostly about the others. She doesn't know what happened to Skye: whether she might be here, too, or if she was left in the Conservatory and, if so, what state she might have been left in. She doesn't know whether this was a multi-pronged attack, whether it's just her who was the objective or if Grant and Coulson might have been attacked on their mission.

She _does_ know that Grant is alive, thanks to her timer. She spends a lot of time just looking at it, using the steady green glow as a focal point for meditation—not something she's spent a lot of time on, in the past, but she's always wanted to try it and she has nothing but time right now. It's surprisingly soothing.

But knowing that Grant is alive doesn't ease her worry for him. The green of the timer means he's alive; it doesn't mean he's uninjured. And there's his mental state to consider, as well. He must be panicked by now, she thinks—she knows how seriously he takes her safety, how he worries for her.

She hopes he's taking care of himself, and that he hasn't allowed the rage of the berserker staff to overwhelm him. He's been struggling with it so, lately, and her kidnapping—if he even knows it's a kidnapping—can't be helping with that.

That's the other worry. Grant doesn't have a timer to reassure him of her survival. If he thinks she's dead…

The soulbond should assure him otherwise, of course, but if he's not thinking clearly it might not be enough. She hopes he doesn't do anything rash, that Coulson and May will be able to keep him in line—assuming that neither he nor they have been captured as well, that is.

And there's Fitz to worry about, as well. He won't be taking her disappearance any better. She hopes _he_ doesn't do anything rash, and that he doesn't take his worry out on the others. She hopes the team is all together, and that they're safe and taking care of one another.

She has so many questions—about her team, about her captors, about how she even got here in the first place—and no answers at all. It's maddening.

She does her best not to think of it all, focusing on meditation and reading and, when those things aren't possible, thinking of better times. She thinks of the five days she spent in Italy with Grant, remembers his arms around her as he soothed her after her nightmares, and lets herself pretend that he's there with her now—imagines promises of keeping her safe being whispered in her ear.

He'll come for her. The whole team will. She just has to hold on. They saved Coulson, didn't they? They'll save her, too.

But it becomes harder and harder to hold on to her hope as the weeks pass and isolation takes its toll. She almost wishes she _were_ being interrogated, just so she'd have something to do—something to look at besides these same two rooms. Obviously she doesn't want to be tortured, but a break in the monotony would be nice.

Halfway through the fourth week, she's given reason to regret that almost wish.

Her dinner is delivered at seven on the dot, as usual. The man who delivers it, however, is new—the first new face she's seen since the second week, when the guard rotation seemed to settle in. The same five men have delivered her meals on a rotating schedule ever since, so the new face is a surprise.

"Oh, dinner-time already," she says, when the guard pushes the slot in the cell door open and shoves a tray through. "What is it tonight? Not stew again, I hope—no offense to your cook, whomever he may be, but he doesn't quite have the knack for stew, I don't think."

She's developed the habit of chattering at her guards, just to keep herself sane, although, of course, they never reply.

Or they don't usually, at least.

"Shut up," the guard snaps, and she scrambles off her bed at once.

"He speaks," she says, approaching the bars. "O, speak again, bright angel!"

She's never liked _Romeo and Juliet_, to be honest, but it seems appropriate and it amuses her. And she's had precious little to smile about, lately.

"Shut your mouth," the guard orders with a scowl. "I'm warning you."

It's not that she isn't afraid—he's heavily armed and outweighs her by at least three stone, of course she's afraid—but his is the first voice, other than her own, that she's heard since arriving. The sheer giddiness outweighs her fear.

"Well, one of us has to fill the silence," she says reasonably, "And it's never the guards. But if _you'd_ like to speak I'll gladly be quiet. Perhaps you'd care to answer one of my several thousand questions?"

She's clearly getting on his nerves and, emboldened, she continues. Even if he doesn't take over and answer her questions just to get her talking, she might be able to annoy him into leaving. The guards always stay and watch her eat so they can take her tray back as soon as she's done, and if she can keep it…well. She doesn't know how one could possibly effect escape with nothing but the dishes and utensils on her tray, but she's a genius. She'll think of something.

"For instance, who are you? Where are we? Why are you keeping me prisoner?" she lists.

"Be. Quiet."

"You don't like those questions?" she asks, frowning. "Well, that's all right; I've got others. Such as, what did you do with Skye? What—"

She breaks off with a gasp and scurries back as the guard wrenches her cell door open. It's the first time the door has been open since she woke up here, but she doesn't have time to even think about making a run for it, because the guard is advancing on her with a very unpleasant sneer on his face.

"I told you to _shut up_," he snarls, and follows it up with a punch to her face.

He doesn't stop there.

Later, she'll only remember the beating in flashes. She'll remember attempting to defend herself, calling on every lesson she's ever had, from SHIELD and Grant both. She'll remember throwing the boiling-hot stew off of her dinner tray in the guard's face, and how it enrages him.

She'll remember that he knocks her down three times before she's in too much pain to get back up.

That's what she'll remember the most, of course: pain.

She's not accustomed to that sort of pain, to the sharp spikes of agony that fade into a burning throbbing, and she'll remember thinking of Grant—remember wondering how he could possibly tolerate such pain on a regular basis.

She'll remember the sharp _crack_ when he breaks her first rib, how she hears it more than feels it and how the white hot pain follows a few seconds later. She'll remember how her vision goes grey at the edges.

She'll remember the invective he spews as he beats her, and will remember thinking that he must be quite mad, because none of it makes sense—as, judging by the choice of insults and pronouns, he appears to think she's male. (She'll think, later, that he must have thought she was someone else, and will be annoyed that she suffered such pain for nothing.)

She'll remember the door bursting open again and two other guards entering. She'll remember them dragging her assailant away as he spits and swears. She'll remember the sudden silence when one of the guards knocks him out, and the panic in the face of the other as he kneels next to her.

She won't remember losing consciousness.

(Mostly, she'll remember wondering if she's going to die—and wondering if death would really be so bad.)

x

She wakes, hours or days later, in what is clearly an infirmary of some sort. Everything is pleasantly hazy; she's floating along on a cloud of what she suspects must be fairly strong opioids, and she can't quite think straight enough to know why it strikes her as odd.

In the spaces between doses of painkiller, when the effects of the last dose have faded but it's too soon to safely administer another, she can't think through the pain. Every breath is accompanied by agony, and her head throbs in time with her pulse. She vomits more than once—and that, too, is agony. She's driven to tears by the pain more than once, and each time finds herself sedated in short order.

She's the only patient in the infirmary, and though there are several different doctors and nurses in attendance, none of them are any more inclined to answer her questions than her guards were. They are not, however, completely silent; in one of her brief moments of lucidity, one of the doctors discusses her injuries with her, and in another, one of the nurses tells her which painkillers and sedatives they've been giving her.

There are several of each; apparently, they're trying to determine which will help her manage her pain most effectively with the least harmful side effects. Were she in a better state, she would likely be able to contribute quite a bit to the discussion; as it is, all she can do is listen—and be thankful that they're going to such effort to ease her pain, even if she doesn't know why.

She finds herself thinking of Grant often, of how blasé he always is about his own injuries, and longs desperately for him.

One of the drugs the doctors try causes her to hallucinate; she wakes, once, and thinks Grant is beside her, perched on the side of the bed next to her hip, holding her hand and apologizing for what's happened.

"I'll kill them all for this," he promises softly, voice chilling in its sincerity. He strokes her hair away from her forehead, frowning at the stitches above her eyebrow. "I promise, Jemma. No one will ever hurt you again."

"I missed you," she mumbles. Her eyelids are heavy and her tongue feels thick in her mouth; she can barely get the words out. "I've been alone for so long."

Grant flinches like he's been struck. "I know. I'm sorry." He leans in and kisses her so softly she barely feels it (of course she doesn't feel it; he's a hallucination). "It won't be much longer now, Jem. You'll be home before you know it."

He sounds so sincere that she actually believes him, forgetting that he's not real.

"Skye there?" she asks, and then frowns. That's not quite right—some of her words got lost on the way to her mouth.

"Yeah, Skye'll be there," he says quietly. "She's fine. Worried about you, though. Driving us all crazy." He presses a sweet kiss to her knuckles. "She feels guilty for letting you get taken."

"Ridiculous," Jemma mumbles. "Not her fault."

"No," Grant says. "It's not." He smiles, just a little, but there's something sad about it. "I'll tell her you said so."

"Love you," she manages, around a yawn.

"I love you, too," he says. He kisses her timer, and her heart clenches in her chest. She's missed him _so much_. "Go back to sleep, Jemma. You need your rest."

"'S my line," she protests, but she closes her eyes anyway—mostly because she can't keep them open any longer.

"I'm not the one who needs rest this time," he says, and she can feel him straightening the blanket laid over her. "Now, go to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up, I promise. Then we can work on revenge, what do you say?"

She falls back to sleep to the sound of his voice, as he makes frankly terrifying promises about what he's going to do to the people who've captured her. It's bizarrely soothing. Of course, it's so wonderful simply to hear his lovely, familiar voice after so long with only her own for company that she'd probably find it just as soothing if he recited the SHIELD handbook to her.

Still, for some reason, there's something especially comforting about Grant promising to do violence on her behalf. (Perhaps she should be concerned about that.) For the first time in more than a month, she falls asleep feeling safe, happy, and not the least bit frightened.

When she wakes to find him gone—when she remembers he was never real—she sobs so hard that she tears three stitches.

x

It's weeks before she's released from the infirmary. Between the haze of the drugs and the sheer number of times she ends up sedated, she loses track of time, but she knows enough about medicine to know roughly how long it must have been, based on the progression of her healing.

After being stuck in bed for so long, she's anxious to leave the infirmary, even if it's just to go back to her cell. She even leaves off her daily routine of questioning the nurses about where she is and why—she's never gotten so much as a hint of an answer from them, but she's never given up trying.

Instead, she focuses on asking _when_ she can leave. She takes perverse pleasure in how clearly she's getting on the nurses' nerves; they've been kind to her, as far as these things go, but she's never forgotten that she's being held prisoner. If she can pay them back even a little of the pain and discomfort she's suffered over the past few months, she's happy to do so.

"You can leave as soon as your escort gets here," one of the nurses snaps eventually.

"And when will that be?" Jemma presses.

"Not nearly soon enough," the woman mutters, and storms away.

It's very satisfying.

Considering the way her life has gone since she woke up in that cell, it shouldn't be a surprise that the warm feeling she gets from annoying the nurses doesn't last very long. To be precise, it lasts right up to the moment that her escort arrives—at which point her heart stops, because she _knows him_.

"Agent Peterson?" she asks weakly, staring up at him in shock. She'd say he looks terrible—the left half of his face is covered in burn scars, and he has some form of metal prosthetic in place of his right leg—but considering the fact that he's _supposed_ to be dead…

"Agent Simmons," he says flatly. "I'm here to escort you back to your room."

"I don't understand," she says, searching his face. "You—you died! I saw it! The explosion on the bridge—"

"Didn't kill me," he interrupts tonelessly. "Follow me."

Her mind is racing as she slides off the bed, but it screeches to a halt as soon as he turns around.

"Centipede," she breathes, staring at the device—larger than any she's seen before and aligned with his spine instead of on his wrist, but still recognizably Centipede's work. "Oh, Mike…"

He turns to face her again and pins her with a stern glare. "I said, follow me."

"Right," she says, trying for a smile. She suspects she fails miserably. "After you."

She forces herself to think past her emotion as she follows him out of the infirmary. She has, of course, previously considered the possibility that it might be Centipede holding her—as, based off of the missions her team has taken on, they were the most likely candidate—but she discarded the theory quickly, mostly owing to the fact that she hadn't been forced into a lab. She couldn't imagine why Centipede might kidnap her, if not for her scientific prowess, and so ranked them as very unlikely on the scale of possible captors.

It appears she was hasty in such judgment.

She knows for a fact that Mike didn't have any sort of device on his back when last she saw him—as he did, after all, spend a fair amount of time shirtless on a lab table while she patched him up. She knows he wouldn't have willingly rejoined Centipede, not after they put his son at risk, but…

It's not difficult to figure out what happened. Centipede caused the explosion that the team thought killed Mike; it wouldn't have been difficult for them to kidnap him at the same time they kidnapped Coulson. Except, instead of holding him for torture as they did Coulson, they saved his life and fixed him up.

And, unlike Coulson, Mike had no one to rescue him.

"Did they put one of their kill switches in you?" she asks. It's the only logical explanation, really; she knows how badly he wanted to be a hero, and a hero would never work for Centipede.

"Yes," he says, flatly, as they turn a corner. She's keeping an eye out for anything that might help her escape at a later date—she's not foolhardy enough to try and run from a super soldier—but so far, all she's seen are blank white walls and doors with multiple deadbolts each. "And they have my son."

She stumbles to a halt. "What?"

Mike stops walking as well, but doesn't turn to look at her. His eyes are fixed firmly ahead.

"They have Ace," he reiterates.

"I'm so sorry," she says, helplessly. "I don't—have they hurt him?"

"No," he says. "And they won't. As long as I cooperate."

She understands it for what it is, an apology and warning in one—he won't be mounting any rescue attempts. As much as she'd love to get out of here—as much as she longs desperately for home—she can't hold it against him.

"Good," she says quietly. "I'm glad."

She has to swallow against her helpless tears. The first familiar face she's seen, someone who _knows_ her and is fully capable of getting her out of here, and he won't be doing anything to help her. She doesn't blame him—of course she doesn't blame him, she would never want him to risk his son's life for her sake—but it's hard to fight the despair the realization raises in her.

It's been months, now, and she's seen no sign of her team. Who's to say that Centipede didn't fake her death, as they did Mike's? Who's to say the team is even looking for her?

She wonders how long Mike waited before giving up hope of being rescued.

"Keep moving," he says, and she falls into step beside him once more.

"Can you at least tell me why I'm here?" she asks. "I mean, it's been months, and there have been no demands made of me at all."

"There will be," he says, coming to a stop outside a door. It has three deadbolts and a retinal scanner; once his eye has been scanned, he draws a key ring from his pocket. Each deadbolt takes a different key, and she makes careful note of which key corresponds to which lock, just in case.

Perhaps she should give up on rescue, at this point, but she won't be giving up on escape.

"There's a lab downstairs," he continues, opening the now unlocked door and gesturing her through it. "You'll start working in it tomorrow."

"Doing what?" she asks.

He shrugs.

She has absolutely no intention of doing _any_ sort of work for Centipede. They can fit her with one of those eyes and kill her if they must; she won't help them advance their agenda. Still, there's no point in saying so to Mike—he is, at best, an unwilling accomplice to Centipede's crimes, and she doubts he has any say in whatever plans they have for her.

"Why now?" she asks instead.

He doesn't answer, and she sighs. Still, the half answers she's gotten from him in the last fifteen minutes are more than she's gotten in all the rest of her time here combined. It's much, much better than nothing.

"Here," he says, stopping outside another locked door. This one has four deadbolts and no retinal scanner. "This is your room."

She examines the door with a frown as he unlocks it. It's solid metal, a distinct contrast from the iron bars that she last saw. There's not even a slot to push a tray through.

"New door?" she asks, uneasy.

"New room," he corrects, and motions her in.

She takes a deep breath and enters the room. It's similar in appearance to her old cell; perhaps slightly larger, and the walls appear to be plaster, rather than concrete, but aside from that, there's not much difference.

"Someone will come to escort you to the lab in the morning," Mike tells her, then pauses. She turns to look at him, curious. "The man who attacked you is dead."

She has…no idea what to say to that.

"It won't happen again," he promises. Then he's gone, the door closing behind him with a solid _clang_.

She closes her eyes as she listens to the locks click into place. She's just as trapped as she was before.

She sleeps poorly that night.

x

This cell is very similar to the last one—bed, desk, chair, lamp, wardrobe, bathroom—but there are a few notable differences.

For one thing, as she noted last night, there's no slot in her door through which meals can be shoved. Instead, when breakfast time rolls around, the door is unlocked and opened, and a man in a lab coat hands her the tray personally.

"I'm to show you to the lab as soon as you finish eating," he tells her. His voice shakes a little, which puzzles her until she looks past him and sees the heavily armed guard in the corridor. "You can take your time."

"Right," she says, and takes a seat at the desk to eat. She wonders, as she does so, exactly how many people are here willingly. Between the implants and Centipede's apparent fondness for kidnapping and imprisonment, there's no telling how many of their employees are working under duress.

It's a sobering thought, if only for the way it limits her potential escape plans. Jemma doesn't know whether or not she has it in her to kill someone, but she knows that she _doesn't_ have it in her to kill anyone who isn't her enemy.

And anyone working for Centipede against his or her will is most certainly not her enemy.

Despite her escort's words, she eats as quickly as possible. There was a time, at the beginning of her captivity, when she would refuse to touch the food she was given, fearing drugs or poison, but she's long since past that. Her captors—Centipede—have all the power, here; they don't need to slip something into her food to harm her.

And starvation, she has found, is very unpleasant.

Once she finishes eating, her escort scoops up her tray and motions her towards the door.

"This way," he says.

Naturally, she attempts to question him on their way to the lab, but she doesn't get much out of him. He restricts himself to one word answers and nervous glances towards the guard following them, and she gives up before they reach the end of the corridor. He won't even tell her his name.

The lab, when they reach it, is a large, open room, full of evenly spaced counters and bustling with activity. It reminds her strongly of the first lab she was ever posted in, right out of the Academy, before she climbed the ranks enough to be given her own, private lab (well, private in the sense that she only shared it with Fitz, that is)—or it would if not for the guards posted along the walls, obviously on high alert and guns at the ready.

Somehow, she gets the feeling that she's not the only scientist in this lab who would rather be elsewhere.

Mike Peterson is standing just inside the door, a little boy by his side, and her escort waves Jemma towards him and then makes himself scarce. She takes a deep breath to steady herself, ignoring the accompanying twinge in her ribs (she's much better, but she's not quite fully healed yet), and approaches them.

"Good morning, Mike," she says, as pleasantly as she can. She smiles down at the little boy, who beams happily at her in return. "Who's this?"

She can't imagine the presence of a little boy in a lab like this is a good thing, but she's careful to keep her voice light. She doesn't want to scare him.

"This is Rafael," Mike says woodenly. "He lives in a nearby neighborhood. He's the oldest of four children. He likes playing soccer and wants to be an astronaut when he grows up."

"That's…nice, I suppose," she says, looking from Rafael to Mike and back again. "But why are you telling me this? What is he doing here?"

"You won't be hurt again," Mike tells her. "No one will ever lay a hand on you. Those are their orders." He scowls; it's an almost gruesome expression, with the burns on his face and the metal around his eye, and she flinches away before she can stop herself. "So Rafael is motivation."

"Motivation?" she asks slowly. There's a pit of dread in her stomach; she's fairly certain she knows where this is going, and sincerely hopes that she's wrong.

"You'll be given research projects," Mike says. "If you refuse to comply, if you attempt to sabotage the results, if you do anything other than cooperate fully…Rafael will pay the price."

Even though it's what she was expecting, it hits her hard. She sucks in a sharp breath, mind racing.

It's a horrible thing and _exactly_ what she would expect from Centipede, but…there's something odd about it. Not that Centipede knows that threats against an innocent child will motivate her more than threats against her own person; _that_ she is willing to file alongside the Kindle loaded with her favorite books and the wardrobe full of clothes that suit her taste and fit her perfectly—things she chalks up to the strange, inexplicable knowledge that got the Clairvoyant his name. Coulson reported that Raina knew things about him that she shouldn't—intimate things—and she assumes that this is much the same.

But the orders that she not be harmed at all? That Centipede actually killed one of its own men for disobeying said orders? There's something odd about it—something that doesn't quite fit.

She knows that her mind is her most valuable asset, and it makes sense that Centipede wouldn't want to endanger it—wouldn't want her to be at risk of brain damage or death from severe beatings like the one that landed her in the infirmary for so long. But to not harm her _at all_…

She can see, looking around the lab, that there are no such orders regarding the other scientists. None of them are in shape anywhere near as bad as she was when she woke up in the infirmary, but several of them show signs of being roughed up—there's a man with a black eye standing in front of a dehydrator and, in the corner, a woman is attempting to balance a tray of test tubes one-handed because her left arm is in a sling.

They've been harmed. Why is she different?

"He'll be beaten," Mike continues emotionlessly, pulling her out of her thoughts. "Tortured. Depending on the level of infraction, he might even be killed."

He sounds like he's reading from a script—which, considering what she knows of Centipede's eye implants, he may well be—but his face is still twisted into a scowl. Rafael must be around Ace's age, if not a little younger, and she thinks it might have been a deliberate choice.

He's motivation for more than just her, she thinks, and her heart aches for all of them—for herself, for Mike, for Rafael…even for Ace, who must be missing his father something terrible.

"And if you escape, Rafael and his entire family will be killed," Mike concludes. "Do you understand?"

She should refuse to cooperate. She doesn't know what Centipede's end game is, but she knows the lengths they've been willing to go to get this far, so she knows it can't be good. Centipede cares nothing for innocent lives; should she cooperate, it's likely that far more than just one little boy will suffer for it. She should tell Mike to tell his superiors to go stuff themselves, even if it means being tortured. Even if it means _Rafael _gets tortured.

But she looks at Rafael, takes in the wide-eyed curiosity on his face as he watches a nearby scientist utilize a centrifuge, and she simply can't do it. She can't condemn him to pain, to the possibility of death.

Seth Dormer's face flashes through her mind, and it firms her resolve. She can't watch another child die, not while she has the power to prevent it.

She swallows. "I understand."

She hopes she won't regret it.

"Good," Mike says flatly. He motions sharply to the man with the black eye, who walks over at once.

"Sir?" the man asks nervously.

"Doctor Simmons is ready to work," Mike tells him. "Give her her assignment."

"Yes, sir," the man nods, and turns to Jemma. "Doctor Simmons, is it? I'm Doctor Calloway. Follow me, please."

"Right," she says, and does so.

As she follows Calloway further into the lab, she sees Mike take Rafael's hand and lead him out of the room. She wonders what will be done with him while she _does_ cooperate. Mike mentioned that he lives in a nearby neighborhood (which suggests they're in a city and not the middle of nowhere—something to remember); will he be allowed to remain at home with his parents? Or will he be kept here, in a cell like hers, the better to threaten her with?

This is such a bloody mess.

"This will be your workstation," Calloway says, leading her to a stretch of counter near the far wall. "The drawers and cabinets marked with a red dot are yours; any others are off-limits to you. The computer's yours, no username or password required, and it doesn't have internet access, so don't even bother trying."

Bugger. She almost got her hopes up for a moment there.

"You'll be expected to submit daily reports on your progress," he continues. "There's a template available on the server—use it. It's meant to keep things simple; the bosses are…" He hesitates. "Not scientifically inclined, if you catch my meaning."

She looks away for a moment, feeling suddenly very homesick. "You mean that failing to use the template will result in requests for the information in English, don't you?"

"Yeah," he says, with a rueful smile. "Only the bosses don't really do _requests_."

"Yes," she murmurs, eyes lingering on the bruising on his face. "So I've heard."

"Right." He clears his throat. "Any questions before I leave you to get started?"

"Well, yes," she says, looking around the workstation. "You've not told me what I'm to work on."

"Right, right," Calloway laughs weakly. "Sorry, long week. Let's see…"

He draws a notepad out of his pocket and flips through it for a moment.

"Here we go. Simmons, Jemma. Biochemistry. You're assigned to the GH-325."

"The what?"

"GH-325," he reads off the pad. "A drug of unknown origin which is capable of inducing complete cellular regeneration, to the point of resurrecting a man who had been dead for several days."

She stares at him. "That's…impossible."

"Apparently not," he shrugs. "Trust me, you're gonna see all kinds of weird things here. You're gonna need to turn your suspension of disbelief up to eleven."

"No, really," she insists. "That is _not possible_. It's a medical—"

She cuts herself off before she can finish, because the rest of his initial sentence has finally registered—most notably, the word _resurrecting_. The last she checked, Centipede was focused on discovering the manner by which Coulson survived New York.

Is it possible they found it? Is this GH-325 what brought Coulson back to life?

And, if so, what does that mean for her team?

"Anyway," Calloway says, ignorant of her sudden realization. "You have two objectives: to investigate the possibility of reproducing the GH-325 and to determine the potential effects of integrating it into the Centipede serum. Everything we've got on both is on your computer already; if you want to work with an actual sample, you'll need to submit a proposal clearly outlining your intentions. There's a template for that, too."

"Of course there is," she says numbly, mind still on the GH-325.

"I think that's it," he says, checking his notepad. "Any other questions?"

Several, in fact, but none that he's likely to be able to answer. She shakes her head.

"Great," he says. "If you think of any, I'm near the door—Station Three. But try to avoid having questions if you can, okay? The guards get twitchy when we start talking."

It's true; she can see the two nearest guards watching them closely—although the nearer of the two flinches a bit and looks away as soon as she makes eye contact with him.

Strange.

"Understood," she assures Calloway. "I'll do my best to muddle through it alone."

"Thanks," he sighs. "Now, get to work. Trust me, you do _not_ want to be caught slacking."

He hurries away before she can decide how best to reply to that, which is just as well. She wants a look at this _everything_ they have on the GH-325. If it _is_ the manner by which Coulson came back to life, then it's likely that Centipede found it through him. And if that's the case, the file might have something on him—something to give her an idea of what's happened to her team during her time here.

x

Unfortunately, the file doesn't have much of anything on her team. It's not a surprise—it was, after all, quite a long shot—but it _is_ a disappointment, and Jemma finds herself blinking back tears.

It's the lab, she thinks. The last time she was in a lab like this, she was fresh out of the Academy and very offended to have been separated from Fitz. The two of them used to sneak away as soon as their respective supervisors' backs were turned in order to compare notes on whatever they were working on at the moment—behavior which was severely frowned upon by the higher ups, but eventually paid off, once said higher ups realized that the instructors at the Academy weren't kidding when they said that FitzSimmons were smarter together.

She misses Fitz like a limb, like she's lost an arm or a leg. She misses him so much that she aches with it. He's such an important part of her and has been for more than a decade; this is the longest she's been separated from him in years, and she doesn't like it at all.

She doesn't wish he were here, because she'd never wish this on him. She wishes that she were _there_, wherever there might be—whether the Bus or the Hub or even back in South Ossetia; wherever he is, she wishes desperately that she could be there with him.

But she can't, and there's no point in getting emotional over it. So she takes a deep breath, forces her longing and her homesickness aside, and gets to work.

x

Her days fall into a routine quickly—get up, shower, eat, go to the lab, work all day, break for lunch with Rafael (Centipede seems to be encouraging her to form an attachment to him; the better to keep her in line, she supposes), submit a report on her progress, return to her cell, sleep)—and she's of two minds about it.

On one hand, she resents being forced into working for Centipede. She worries over what the organization will do with the knowledge she gives them and whether people will suffer for her cooperation, and she frets constantly over Rafael—who, as it turns out, is being held within the compound as part of something called the Incentives program.

She learns through quick, mumbled conversations with her fellow scientists that most all of them have a soulmate or a family member being held ransom against their good behavior; any disobedience or rebellion or attempted escape means death for the people they love. It's a horrid, but effective, way of keeping people in line.

(It is something of a puzzle, though, because Jemma, as far as she can tell, is the only person for whom the Incentive is a complete stranger. Children are frequent victims of the program, but always children who actually _know_ the scientist in question. Rafael is an outlier—more evidence of the difference between Jemma's captivity and that of her reluctant colleagues.)

On the other hand, however, after months of inactivity, it's such a relief to have something to _do_. She's been given an intriguing problem to solve and the tools to solve it with, and it's so much better than sitting in her cell or the infirmary with nothing to do but read and meditate that she almost wants to cry.

It doesn't outweigh the negatives of the situation—of which there are very, very many—but it helps.

x

Two weeks after her release from the infirmary, her new routine is interrupted in an unexpected and, frankly, horrible way.

There are some fifteen other scientists assigned to the lab Jemma works in, which means that—despite the unspoken prohibition against talking amongst themselves—there's usually a fairly constant buzz of noise in the room. Between the sounds generated by various pieces of equipment, the tendencies of several of the scientists to speak to themselves as they work, and the guards themselves (who maintain a semi-regular patrol between the counters), the lab is never truly quiet.

She's grown used to it and even come to appreciate it, a little—although it is, of course, no match for what she's used to on the Bus, with Fitz being brilliant at the next workstation and Grant reading in the corner, quietly keeping them company—so she notices when it abruptly ceases.

She's working on a request for access to a sample of the GH-325 (her fifth request; the first four were rejected as _too vague_ or _too specific_ or _totally incomprehensible_, much to her frustration) when she realizes that the lab has grown quiet. She swivels on her stool to face the rest of the room, wondering what's happening, and it only takes her a moment to follow Doctor Sarlo's gaze to the two men walking towards them.

Her breath catches, and at first, she can't believe her eyes.

It's Grant.

Her heart leaps. For a moment, she's almost dizzy with relief, because finally, finally she's getting rescued—and even putting that aside, it's so good to see him again, alive and well and bearing no visible signs of harm, that she could cry.

For a moment, she's the happiest she's ever been, because after months of captivity, her soulmate is here and walking right towards her.

For a moment, everything is perfect.

And then reality filters in.

Realization dawns. Her blood runs cold.

Grant's not running. He's visibly armed (as always), but his weapons are holstered. The guards aren't attempting to stop him _or_ the unknown man he's with.

In fact, they're saluting.

No. No, this _cannot_ be what it looks like. It can't. That guard—the guard who backhanded Doctor Marenco yesterday for dropping a clipboard—did _not_ just call Grant sir.

Grant does _not_ look like he belongs here. These people—her _captors_, for goodness' sake—do _not_ know him. This isn't what it looks like. It can't be.

Her mind is stewing in denial, but her body has obviously already accepted the obvious truth, because when he gets within speaking range—when he's close enough for her to see the relief and the love in his eyes—when he breathes her name like she's the most important person in the universe—she's on her feet and backing away without any thought at all.

Grant winces. "Jemma—"

She shakes her head mutely. She has no idea what to say—what there is _to_ say. And even if she did, she still wouldn't dare open her mouth, for fear that she'll be physically ill.

"Now, Agent Simmons," the man next to Grant tsks, "Is that any way to greet your soulmate?"

"Don't help, John," Grant tells him, and then turns to look at Jemma. "Jemma. Listen, this isn't…"

"Isn't what?" she asks, shakily, as he trails off. "Isn't what it looks like? Because it _looks_ like you've some amount of authority over the people who've been keeping me prisoner for _months_."

John—and it must be John Garrett, mustn't it? Grant's SO, whom he's always described as being like a father to him; perhaps Grant drew him into whatever this is, or vice versa—laughs.

"Girl's got a point," he says, in response to Grant's annoyed glare. "This is pretty much _exactly_ what it looks like."

Jemma and Grant both ignore him.

"Tell me you have an implant," she begs Grant. "Tell me I've been held hostage against your good behavior. _Tell me_ you weren't involved in what's happened to me."

Somehow, she already knows what his answer will be, and she thinks she's braced herself for it. His response proves her wrong.

"I wish I could," he says quietly.

The confirmation hurts. _Breathing_ hurts. Every _second_ of pain she experienced during her convalescence combined cannot match how much this moment hurts, how the guilty look on Grant's face strikes her right in the throat.

"Jemma…"

He takes a step towards her, and she stumbles back.

"No," she snaps—or tries to, at least. It comes out on a sob instead. "No, you stay away from me."

He stills, and somehow—unfairly—the pain on his face hurts her just as much as his betrayal does.

"It's been _months_," she tells him. She can barely speak past the lump in her throat—she's spent so long clinging to the idea of seeing him again, to the idea of _rescue_, and to learn that he's responsible for their separation? That he's the cause of her suffering?

She honestly can't believe she's still standing.

"I know," he says, pained. "I know, and I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? I nearly _died_," she stresses. "If those guards had been two minutes later—"

"I know," he repeats, and there's something dark in his voice that keeps her from continuing. He takes a deep breath and eyes the nearest guard. "Has anyone hurt you since?"

"Not physically," she says, because the mental toll this entire ordeal has taken cannot _possibly_ be communicated.

"Good," he says quietly. "That's good."

She can't stand to look at his face, to see the longing and pain and regret written on it, so she looks to the man next to him.

"Since Grant's lost his manners, allow me to introduce myself," he says. "John Garrett."

"Grant's SO," she says. As she suspected.

"He's mentioned me, huh?" Garrett grins. "Glad to hear it. But…" He lowers his voice, conspiratorial. "You might know me better as the Clairvoyant."

Before she can process that—before she can even begin to consider the implications—there's the distinct sound of a distant explosion, and the ground shakes beneath them. Jemma grasps the counter next to her for balance; Doctor Zaytsev isn't fast enough and gets knocked right off her stool.

"What the hell?" Garrett asks, sounding genuinely confused. "What was that?"

Grant, in contrast, looks perfectly calm. He checks his watch and nods to himself.

"If I had to guess," he says. "That would be Iron Man."

"Iron—?"

"I joined the team under false pretenses," he tells Jemma bluntly, ignoring Garrett's bafflement. "I was working with Centipede from the beginning. But things changed when I met you. I know you don't believe me right now, and you've got good reason not to. But I want you to know, Jemma—I really do love you." He smiles grimly. "Which is why I called in some reinforcements for this op."

Then, so quickly and smoothly that she barely follows the motion, he draws his sidearm, pivots, and shoots Garrett in the chest. Jemma jumps; the rest of the lab—which _had_ descended into chaos in the wake of the explosion—freezes.

Garrett hits the floor, face almost comically shocked, and Grant closes what little distance there is between them to loom directly over his mentor, gun still in hand.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this, John," he says, lowly, but there's an angry, almost mocking edge to his words.

"Grant," Garrett chokes out, blood on his lips. "You—"

"I owe you everything," Grant says coolly. "I would have followed you anywhere. But you crossed a line when you took Jemma."

She starts at the sound of her own name, and Grant glances at her. His face may be blank, but his eyes are full of anguish, of some confusing tangle of anger and fear and regret. She swallows hard, heart racing.

"She means more to me than you do," he continues, looking back to Garrett. "Than anyone or anything." His mouth twists in a bitter smile as he raises his gun again. "That's not a weakness, is it?"

He pulls the trigger twice more, and Jemma stumbles back, frightened out of her shock.

She's not the only one, either. The nearest guard reaches for his own weapon—a machine gun of some sort to Grant's sidearm; even Jemma, whose knowledge of firearms is almost entirely academic, knows that that's not a good thing—and Grant swears.

"Get down," he snaps at her, and she obeys without conscious thought.

She ducks under the counter, dragging a still-frozen Doctor Zaytsev with her.

"He—he killed him," the woman is stammering, face pale. "He actually _killed_ him right in front of us."

Jemma's spared the stress of finding a reasonable response to that statement of the blatantly obvious by the firefight raging above their heads, which is very loud and impossible to speak over. She focuses on keeping her head down and, in an attempt to stave off her worry, reminds herself that Grant got himself and Fitz out of South Ossetia with barely a scratch between them.

She pointedly does _not_ consider why she's worried about Grant at all.

He's been working for the enemy the entire time she's known him. He was party to her captivity which, though not nearly as bad as it could have been, has been highly unpleasant.

He doesn't deserve her worry.

The fight seems to take forever—unsurprising, considering the sheer number of guards Grant is facing—but eventually, the yelling and the gunfire seem to stop all at once. Jemma holds her breath; the lab is eerily silent now, and she doesn't know how to take it.

"You can come out now," Grant says after a very long, very tense moment. He sounds…odd. "It's safe."

Jemma looks at Zaytsev, who shakes her head, expression clearly reading _like hell_. She's tempted to agree with the other woman—she's not in a hurry to see whatever carnage Grant has just caused—but after so long spent first locked in a small cell and then confined to the infirmary, she's developed a slight case of claustrophobia, and huddling in the tiny space under the counter with another grown woman is not a comfortable experience.

So she crawls out from under the counter and stands. Grant is leaning against the opposite counter, reloading his gun, and he gives her a quick once-over, frowning.

"You okay?" he asks.

She's never been further from okay. "I'm not hurt."

"Right," he says. His tight, unhappy smile tells her he's aware of her evasion, and of the reasons for it. "Glad to hear it."

She doesn't ask if he's okay. She can see that he's been shot—there's blood running down his left arm—but forces herself to ignore it. She just doesn't have it in her right now to play medic for him, and it appears to be a graze, anyway. It can wait.

"Okay," he says, slamming his gun's magazine into place. "Let's go."

"Go?" she echoes. "Go where?"

Her confusion seems to hurt him, for some reason; he looks away, busying himself with adjusting his tac vest, but she can see the emotion in the slump of his shoulders. His face, when he looks up at her again, is carefully blank.

"Home," he says. "I'm getting you out of here."

Her heart leaps. "Really?"

"You sound surprised," he notes, with a smile nowhere near as playful as it's likely meant to be.

"Are _you_ surprised?" she scoffs. The pain of his betrayal has yet to even begin to fade, but there's a slow, burning anger starting up to accompany it. "You're apparently the reason I'm here. Why would I expect you to rescue me?"

Grant flinches. "I'm not…" He shakes his head. "There's a lot you don't know, Jemma." He searches her eyes, face earnest. "I had nothing to do with your kidnapping."

"Really?" she asks, disbelieving. "Your bloody _mentor_ is the Clairvoyant and you _just_ admitted that you've been working with him this whole time. You truly expect me to believe that you didn't have anything to do with Centipede kidnapping me?"

"I don't," he sighs and scrubs his free hand over his face. "It's complicated. John…" He tosses a contemptuous glance in the direction of Garrett's corpse. Jemma deliberately doesn't follow his gaze; she's peripherally aware of the number of bodies strewn about the room, and would prefer not to get a good look at them. "He thought meeting you had affected my loyalty, so he arranged to have you kidnapped to keep me in line."

She breathes in slowly, absorbing that. "And had it? Affected your loyalty, I mean."

"No," he says, looking pained. "It hadn't."

Well, at least he's honest. About this one, tiny thing.

She wonders how many lies he told her, in the short time they had together. How much of the person he shared with her was really him? How many of the secrets he told her were true?

She stops that line of thought before it can get any further. It's just too awful to think about right now.

"Jemma, you have every right to hate me—"

"I don't need your _permission_ to hate you," she interrupts, absurdly incensed by the words, and he takes a deep breath.

"You're right. I'm sorry. Of course you don't," he says. "What I meant was, I know you're angry, and I'm not disputing the fact that you have cause to be. But I need you to trust me for just a little while longer so I can get you out of here. Okay?"

He holds out a hand to her, and she stares at it, chest tight.

She's never had reason to doubt him before. She trusted him at once, gave her heart to him as easily as she gave her name, and she thinks the fact that she was clearly in error in doing so is the most painful thing about this whole mess. (Though the competition is stiff.)

"I can't leave," she tells him, eyes on his hand. "There's a little boy—Rafael—"

"The Incentives program," Grant interrupts, and she raises her eyes to meet his. "I know. It's okay; there's a team freeing him—freeing all of them—right now."

"_A_ team?" she asks. "Not _the_ team?"

"I told you," he says, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. "I called in reinforcements. Our team, the Avengers, half of SHIELD…" He shrugs his uninjured shoulder. "Trust me; they've got it under control."

There's that word again.

"You're sure?" she asks.

"All of these people will be reunited with their loved ones within the hour," he promises. "And Rafael will be back with his family before the day is out." He licks his lips, looking terribly sad. "Let me get you back to yours. Please."

Her family. Fitz. Skye. Even May and Coulson. She can see them again. She can hug them. She can finally find out what happened to Skye the day she was kidnapped.

She can see her parents again. (She wonders if they were ever even told she was missing.)

(Except she _wasn't_ missing, was she? Grant knew where she was the whole time.)

"Please," he repeats, quietly, hand still outstretched. "Let me get you out of here. Then you'll never have to see me again. I promise."

How much is a promise from him even worth? She has no idea. But she wants out of here—wants to be far away from this horrible, horrible place which has been her prison for far longer than she'd care to think about—and so, with a deep breath to steel herself, she places her hand in his.

Her heart clenches when he twines his fingers with hers. Their hands still fit together so perfectly, the way they're meant to, and it hurts— tremendously. She's spent months longing for him—not just for rescue, although certainly she wanted that, but for his touch, for his arms around her and his lips on hers—and to finally see him again, only to learn _this_…

Despite her best efforts, a sob slips past her lips.

Grant twitches a bit, as though he means to comfort her, but holds himself still, shoulders taut.

"Come on," he says. "Let's get you home."

True to his word, SHIELD agents are streaming into the lab even as they leave it. She can hear someone giving orders, hears Calloway say a heartfelt _oh, thank God_, but doesn't look back.

Grant's hand is so warm in hers. She's proud of herself for keeping her feet.

They traverse three corridors before the silence starts to get to her.

"Is Skye all right?" she asks.

Grant's steps falter, but only for a moment. He doesn't look at her. "She's fine. Worried about you and not speaking to me at all, but fine."

"And the others?" she presses.

"Also fine," he says. "And also not speaking to me."

Before she can decide how to respond to that—or even if she _wants_ to respond—there's another, closer, explosion. Grant swears.

"Tony fucking Stark," he mutters, speeding up their strides a touch.

"Not a fan?" she asks, a little shakily. That explosion was awfully close.

"Let's just say that every bad thing you've ever heard about him is absolutely true," Grant says tiredly. "And he really, really enjoys how much he annoys people."

"Could've done without his help, then?" she asks.

"I wish."

Actually, that raises an excellent question.

"You really needed the Avengers' help to take down Centipede?" she asks. As far as reinforcements go, they're a little drastic, she thinks. "Just how extensive _is_ your operation, anyway?"

He's silent for a long moment, jaw tight, and she thinks she's hurt him by referring to Centipede as _his_ operation. She refuses to feel badly about it.

"Not Centipede, no," he says, finally, voice carefully even. "We could've managed Centipede on our own. But it's not just Centipede."

Well, that's…concerning. "Who else is it, then?"

"HYDRA."

Her shock stops her in her tracks. Grant seems to be expecting it; he stops just as soon as she does, and waits patiently as she tries to gather her thoughts.

"HYDRA?" she manages. "That's ridiculous, Grant. HYDRA is—HYDRA is _gone_. Captain America destroyed it decades ago."

"Not gone," he corrects. "In hiding."

There's something else—something he's not saying. She can read it clearly in the apology in his eyes: the worst is yet to come.

"Hiding where?" she asks slowly.

"Everywhere," he says. "In Congress, in the White House, in the UN, on the board of every major corporation in the world…" He hesitates, and she knows before he opens his mouth what he's going to say next. "In SHIELD."

"How," she swallows. "How much of SHIELD?"

"A lot," he says, gentle and apologetic. "Secretary Pierce, the STRIKE teams, half of Level Eight…" He grimaces. "They've spent decades in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike."

"We," she says, numbly.

"What?"

"You mean _we_, don't you?" she asks, voice barely above a whisper. "Not _they_. You're one of them."

"…Yeah," he admits, watching her face. "I am."

Even though she knew it was coming—even though she was expecting it—it still knocks the breath right out of her. She closes her eyes, fighting back tears and nausea both.

Her soulmate is a _Nazi_. How is this possible?

"I'm sorry," he says lowly. "Jemma, you have no idea how much I regret—"

"Stop," she chokes out, still trying to fight down her reaction. "I can't—I don't—"

"Okay," he soothes. "Okay, I'll stop. But we have to keep moving, okay? The sooner we get out of here, the sooner you can get away from me."

His voice breaks a bit in the middle of his sentence, and she opens her eyes to find that he's closed his. There's a muscle ticking in his jaw and the hand not holding hers is clenched tightly around his gun, and she honestly can't tell whether he's heartbroken or furious.

She wishes she didn't care.

"Okay," she says, and he opens his eyes. "Let's go, then."

He nods once, and they return to silence as they continue down the corridor. But she doesn't want silence—has had enough silence for an entire lifetime (something else for which she can lay blame at his feet)—so she searches her mind for something else to ask.

"How did the Avengers get involved, anyway?" she finally settles on. "The last I checked, they thought Agent Coulson dead."

Again, it takes Grant several long moments to reply.

"I've worked with Barton before," he says eventually. "I couldn't tell the team, at first, about Garrett—couldn't risk him realizing I was up to something and taking it out on you—so I went to him. Told him about everything—Centipede and HYDRA and all—and, once I convinced him not to kill me, asked for his help. He brought in the rest of them."

"That must have been…interesting."

"Yeah, you wanna talk about feeling small," he says with a humorless laugh. "Try facing down Captain America and telling him you work for the organization he gave his life trying to end."

She laughs a little despite herself—despite how entirely _not_ funny this whole thing is—and Grant's fingers tighten briefly around hers.

"We're almost out," he says abruptly, and it takes her a moment to realize he's not speaking to her. He's on comms. "Widow, what's your status?"

"Present."

Jemma nearly jumps out of her skin at the unexpected voice, and Agent Romanoff—who has just dropped out of the ceiling without any warning at all—gives her an apologetic smile.

"Sorry," she says. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine," she answers, though she's perhaps not very convincing, as her voice comes out a touch higher than usual. "I'm just…a bit on edge."

"Understandable," Romanoff says, and looks her over. "You injured?"

"No," she says. "I'm fine."

(Aside from the way her poor heart is still racing, that is. She's had one too many shocks today, she thinks; one more and she might actually suffer cardiac arrest.)

"Good," Romanoff says, then looks to Grant (who, naturally, was not startled at all by her sudden appearance) and says something in Russian.

He responds in kind, voice sharp, and Romanoff rolls her eyes.

"Come on," she says to Jemma, ignoring the way Grant is glowering. "There are a lot of people anxious to see you."

Jemma swallows. "I'm anxious to see them, too."

"I bet," Romanoff says. She gives Grant a sideways glance and raises an eyebrow at him; in response, he shakes his head, and she sighs. "Door's this way."

It takes less than two minutes to reach the exit, and Jemma's heart is racing the whole way. She just _knows_ that as soon as she sets foot outside, she's going to lose her fight against the tears that have been threatening since Grant walked into the lab. She's going to end up crying in front of all of the Avengers, and it will likely be mortifying.

Or it would be, if she weren't so relieved. She's finally going to be out of this horrid place. She's finally going to see the others again. Perhaps this isn't how she anticipated being freed—certainly she never would have expected to learn that Grant is the enemy—but it's better than nothing.

As for the fact that Grant _is_ the enemy…she's going to need some time to process that. She has no idea what to do or think about it right now. She doesn't know what to think about _anything_.

She just wants to go home.

(The worst part is that she knows that's impossible. Even if she walks out the final door to find the Bus parked right outside, it won't be _home_. Things will never be the same again; they can't be. Not with Grant a traitor and Jemma herself undeniably scarred by the months she spent in captivity.)

When they reach the exit, Grant finally lets go of her hand. She chooses not to examine how reluctant she is to release him, and instead focuses on steadying her breathing.

She's almost _nervous_ to be leaving the building. It's absurd.

"Whenever you're ready," Romanoff says kindly, and Jemma shakes her head.

"I'm ready now," she says, and pushes through the door.

She barely makes it three feet out of the building (blinking against the bright midday sun; there were no windows within her prison, so it's been months since she saw daylight) before she's hit with a missile in the form of Fitz. She stumbles back a few steps from the force of impact, but doesn't even think to complain.

As predicted, she's crying.

So is Fitz. "Jemma, thank Christ, I thought I'd never see you again—"

She clings to him, utterly unable to speak, and sobs into his shoulder. He smells like Fitz, like engine grease and soap and the hard candies he snacks on when he's puzzling out a particularly difficult problem—he smells like _home_—and some of the ache in her chest eases for the first time in months.

It could be seconds or hours later that she's knocked off balance once more, as Skye throws herself at the two of them.

"Jemma," and of course Skye's crying, too, "Jemma, I'm _so sorry_, I should've stopped them, it's all my fault—"

"No," Jemma manages. "No, Skye, don't be absurd, of course it's not your fault—"

And the three of them are crying and talking over one another and the group hug is actually fairly uncomfortable, thanks to the odd way they're positioned—Jemma is getting a cramp in her left shoulder—and…

And it's perfect.

It can't last, of course. Nothing good ever does, and her happy reunion with her two best friends is no exception. They've given up on trying to converse (catching up can wait until everyone's done crying, she supposes) and Jemma's tears have finally begun to slow when she's brought crashing back to earth by the sound of Coulson's voice.

"All right, Ward. Time's up."

She pulls herself away from their group hug—although it's really more of a huddle, at this point—to see Grant disarming himself, handing his (numerous) weapons over to Agent Romanoff one by one.

"What's going on?" she asks.

Skye follows her gaze and makes a face.

"Ward made a deal," she says disdainfully. "He agreed to turn himself in without a fight as long as he got to be part of your rescue."

"Can't believe he's actually doing it," Fitz mutters. "I was expecting him to try shooting his way out of here."

"You and me both," Skye agrees.

Jemma watches, torn, as Grant allows himself to be patted down by Coulson. She doesn't know what to say, or if she even _wants_ to say anything. He's the enemy, a traitor to not only their team but to SHIELD as a whole, and that's not even addressing the whole Nazi issue, but…

He's her soulmate.

He's the reason she spent months as a prisoner.

He rescued her.

He's the _reason she needed rescuing_.

He's her _soulmate_.

Can she forgive him for the months she spent in captivity? For months of endless fear and isolation? For the weeks she spent confined to a hospital bed after a beating he, presumably, could have prevented?

And she doesn't know—doesn't even want to think about—what he might have done for HYDRA. Can she forgive him _that_?

A gentle touch to her shoulder brings her out of her internal dilemma, and she turns to find May watching her with understanding eyes.

"Come on," she says, inclining her head towards a nearby SUV. "We need to get you checked out."

"I'm not hurt," Jemma says, and her voice sounds…strange.

May searches her face, and Jemma doesn't think it's her imagination that the older woman's gaze lingers on the scar above her eyebrow—a souvenir from the guard who nearly killed her.

Then May meets her eyes, and she _knows_ it's not her imagination that May can see all of the other, less visible scars this experience has left her with.

"Humor me," May requests, voice almost unbearably gentle.

Jemma glances over her shoulder. Grant is placidly allowing Coulson to handcuff—no, shackle—his wrists and ankles, while two heavily armed men keep machine guns trained on him. He doesn't even appear to notice them; his eyes are locked on her, and when he realizes she's looking back, he gives her a rueful smile.

_You'll never have to see me again_, he promised, back in the lab. Apparently he was in earnest.

She takes a deep breath and turns away. Fitz and Skye are watching her with concerned expressions, and she takes their hands in hers (for comfort or reassurance; even she couldn't say) as she gives May her best smile.

"Very well, then," she says. "Let's get out of here, if you please."

May leads the way to the SUV. Jemma doesn't look back.


End file.
